DON'T TOUCH THAT!: A Sci-Fi and Fantasy Parenting Anthology

by Jaymee Goh, Shweta Adhyam, Adrienne Maree Brown

Parenting is often referred to as life's greatest adventure -- but what happens when parenting happens during adventures across time, space, and magic?

While popular stories have often included parents in their plots, few are actually about the act of parenting: the joy, the grief, the anxiety, and the love that comes hand in hand with the moment-to-moment challenges of raising a child...until now.

Don't Touch That! is an anthology of stories about parents and parenting, from what to do when a wizard convinces your child to go on adventure, to the particular grief of your adult child choosing to set sail on a colony-ship, to the ways parenting intrudes even when you're summoning demons, and much more.

Featuring bestselling and award-winning voices such as Kate Elliot, Mark Oshiro, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and many more, Don't Touch That! brings the one-of-a-kind journey of parenting to the world of science fiction and fantasy.

The full author list includes:

Shweta Adhyam
Adrienne Maree Brown
Melissa Caruso
Mike Chen
N. E. Davenport
K. A. Doore
Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki
Kate Elliott
Rob Hart
Jess Hernandez
Brit E. B. Hvide
Michael Mammay
Justin C. Key
L.D. Lewis
Sylvia Liu
Alex London
Devin Madson
Jenny Martin
Rowenna Miller
Meghan Molin
Karen Osborne
Mark Oshiro
Keena Roberts
Valerie Valdes

Genres: Fantasy, Anthologies, Science Fiction, Short Stories

350 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2022

About the author

Jaymee Goh is a writer of fiction, poetry, and academese from Malaysia who moved to Canada for tertiary education. She is a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Workshop 2016, and her fiction has been published in Strange Horizons, Lightspeed Magazine and the award-winning New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color. Her work has been reprinted in Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy and LeVar Burton. She co-edited The Sea is Ours: Tales of Steampunk Southeast Asia (Rosarium Publishing), and edited The WisCon Chronicles Vol. 11: Trials By Whiteness (Aqueduct Press). She is currently an editor for Tachyon Publications.

Reviews

[Jasmine]

Look at that cover image! And that TOC! It's currently funding on kickstarter, and yes I backed this.

[Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm on this. Tadaaaa

[erforscherin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exactly what it says on the tin: a collection of parenting-focused SFF stories, It’s generally good fun, though I admit I skipped a handful that didn’t quite grab my attention.

There were quite a few standouts here, but I especially loved Valerie Valdes’ wonderfully funny story about a demonic summoning ritual interrupted by a needy preschooler - 100% true to life, I was smiling the whole way through! Only a little disappointed the demon didn’t get roped into babysitting at the end. :)

[Sifa Poulton · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

DON'T TOUCH THAT is my fourth of fifth anthology read this year (I think) and it's probably my favourite. From the epic to the slice of life, from meetings in schools to keeping secret identities and home life separate, to examinations of privilege, racism, and the expectations placed on women, from joy to grief, there is so much variety in this anthology.

It's funny and heart-warming and sad and thought-provoking. There are all sorts of families presented, but every tale is about another facet of the relationship between a child and an adult who loves them. All while having adventures (or nightmares!) against magic and monsters and capitalism.

There's a richness of world imagined too. There are fantasy worlds where heroes are trained in schools or old men come and take children away to be heroes. There is the vastness of space beyond spaceship bulkheads. There are dystopia (but increasingly probabilistic feeling) visions of the future. There are contemporary lives with supernatural undertones.

And on top of all this danger, all these wonders, the adults have to protect their children, learn when to let them grow and stand on their own two feet, navigate tricky relationships, and find a way to be both parent and individual. But, at the end of the day, no matter how pressing a topic each story has tackled, they are ultimately heart-warming tales of how far parents are willing to go for their children.

[Greymalkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun idea/theme for a short story collection. Much like any anthology the quality is uneven, but there are several good ones. I think my major issue with it is not the fault of any one author but that so many of the stories focused on the burden that children place on their parents, messing up schedules, disrupting spells, getting kidnapped or arrested. I understand that those worries are part and parcel of being a parent, but I wish more of them were about the joys of parenting and finding new ways to be a family together with challenging circumstances. Several stories were like that and I really enjoyed those.

[Littlebookterror]

I desperately hope there will be an edition to purchase since I totally missed the window on the kickstarter.

[David H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the theme for this anthology, but I only really appreciated a couple of them, like Kate Elliott's "When I Grow Up" (though that's more of a kid story than a parent story...) and Melissa Caruso's very fun "Called to the Office." Justin C. Key's "The World Wasn't Ready for You" was heartbreaking on multiple levels. However, many of the stories didn't quite work for me. In one that took place on a "generation ship" (as labeled by the story), it clearly wasn't one, and a few others had rather confusing setups which made it harder to buy into the rest of the plot. Quite a few had premises that I find incredibly hard to fathom human parents deciding to do. All in all, I was kind of disappointed. (I do plan to read more from some of these authors, it just means they didn't work out for me this time around.)

[Mayken Brunings · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology is a collection of sci-fi and fantasy short stories centered around parenting. The title alone had me hooked – I mean, just imagine the consequences of a kid touching something they are not supposed to in a sci-fi or fantasy setting. A critical button in a spaceship? A sleeping dragon? The possibilities are endless. And that’s just the title.
The stories, by a number of different authors (only two of whom I’d read before) tackle a wide variety of “what if” scenarios. I can't decide on a favorite because they are all so awesome.
If you enjoy reading sci-fi and/or fantasy and have kids, this is the anthology you have been waiting for.

[Ryann Grimes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This had all the elements I usually enjoy, but it didn’t quite hit the mark. The pacing was uneven, with some parts dragging while others felt rushed. The characters were interesting, but I struggled to connect with them on a deeper level. It was a decent read, but it left me wanting more substance.

[Kaitlyn Downs · Rating 5 out of 5]

The concept was intriguing, and there were parts I thoroughly enjoyed, but overall it felt underdeveloped. The pacing was inconsistent, with a few slow chapters that were hard to get through. Some characters shone, while others felt like afterthoughts. It’s a decent read, but I expected a bit more polish.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

TW: there are some stories that include the deaths of the narrators'/POV children and as someone who has experienced that loss it hurt a lot to read. But all of the stories were wonderfully written and interesting. I loved this anthology and highly recommend to anyone.

[Jenny Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first published story appears in this anthology, and I love the others. So many great authors.

[Lis Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an anthology of stories about parenting, in diverse and strange settings, by diverse authors, and with quite varied takes on the subject.

Brit E.B. Hvide gives us a story of mysterious visitors to a village who recruit children to leave their homes and families and go off on an adventure, from which they might or might not return. When this particular village receives its third mysterious visitor in a year, a visitor looking for that particular child of portent, one mother knows that this time he's going to take her son. And her son is really all she has left that matters to her. She decides this story of adventure will start a little differently.

Valerie Valdes tells us of the trials of a magician summoning a demon, and trying to get vital information out of him for a larger project. Unfortunately, she's doing this while her husband is away on his own work, and she's the only one available to supervise her rowdy toddler, who is not a fan of nap time.

From Mark Oshiro, we have an interesting take on a p lague and a zombie apocalypse story. From K.A. Doore, a story of a mother and her little girl finding a bug that might be alien, or might be a new form of Earth life, but either way, they need to learn to communicate with it.

Andrienne Maree Brown tells the story of a very human interracial marriage, and the arrival of aliens who have intervened quite dramatically, with the goal of giving us the help we need to heal. Heal from what? The very thing that causes the most disruption and conflict on Earth. Everyone is summoned to a location, different locations for some groups than others, to be given supplies and instructions on getting through this period when many of them will be separated from most of the people in their lives, and very few routine things are working at all. Miski and Fred, in particular, are greatly stressed by being separated, but have a lot to learn.

Jenny Martin gives us the story of a botanist on a generation ship, whose daughter and son-in-law are also on board, and do maintenances--when necessary, on the essential external equipment. It's a blow, when she learns they've been killed in an accident. It's much more complicated when she learns they've left behind a gestating embryo, and it's her decision, whether that embryo becomes her grandchild, is put up for adoption in a generation ship where she'll be easily adoptable, or is terminated.

There are fantasy stories, science fiction stories, and superhero stories that focus on parenthood, its challenges, and how the settings and backgrounds of the stories and characters affect those challenges, joys, and conflicts.

Overall, a really excellent anthology.

[Cheryl]

Would put it on thriftbooks wishlist but they don't have it listed at all.

[Imp · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some true bangers in this one. My favourite story was definitely “In Parallel” by Adrienne Maree Brown.
Some of these stories didn’t fit the theme of the collection though.

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than a year to read but worth it. They're all good. There's a nice balance of sub genres. Each one is just the right length to read one before bed.

"Let us start the story another way" by Brit E. B. Hvide
"Mothers Love, Father's Place" by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki
"Parenting in Daemonum Extremis" by Valerie Valdes
"Life 2.0" by Sylvia Liu
"The Leige-Mother" by N. E. Davenport
"There is No One Else" by Devon Madson
"Supermom" by Jess Hernandez
"Parallel" by Adrienne Maree Brown
"When I grow up (a spirit walker universe story)" Kate Elliott
"At the Turning of the Year" by Rowenna Miller
"Careful the Things You Say" by K.A. Doore
"Called to the Office" by Melissa Caruso
"Celeste" by Rob Hart
"Paranoia" by Mark Oshiro
"What to Expect When" by Alex London
"$126" by Karen Osborne
"Stasis" by Mike Chen
"Swan Song" by Megan Molin
"The Most Wanted Daughter" by Keena Roberts
"The World Wasn't Ready for You" by Justin C. Key
"The secret language of trees" by Jenny Martin


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